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A portrait of my children every week for a year.

Flowers for a grave

Esther: So her favourite colour is pink. Mm hmm, that's right. She is passionate about it, and declares as much every day. I have absolutely no bias against pink and no problem with it being her favourite. I'm just fascinated. We have treated it as just another colour (because it is) in our house, and haven't used it any more or less. How come so many girls are so in to it? Esther has no older girl influence and doesn't see anything that puts advertisements in front of her eyes. She likes to watch a little Peppa Pig which of course features pink, but I'm not sure that has done it. We did have quite a few pink hand-me-down clothes but we still mix it up quite a lot. Anyway, pink it is. She simply chose it, as so many girls do. We'll indulge it on some occasions and not others. Reuben is just as passionate about red which also fascinated me, it's amazing how hooked they can get on a colour when so young.

Reuben: The little guy stayed the night at Grandad's this week. He hasn't done that since he was 2, so it feels like a whole new thing. He seemed to grow by about 3 years when I told him the plan, and he was so excited about it - actually it was his idea originally. He had a wonderful time and didn't miss a beat. Hoorah! We have one more week of holidays and I must say it was good to get a bit of breathing space. We'll be doing it again, Grandad. He's asked to stay five nights next time, but I've reined it in to two.


* I forgot to tell you about one of the highlights of our recent holiday: the flight home. Bad weather was moving up the country and Wellington was set for some very high winds. We were told when leaving New Plymouth that if we couldn't land we would try instead at Paraparaumu. As we neared Wellington, the pilot said, "Right, we're going to have a crack at Wellington." The lovely chatty woman next to Reuben went quiet. Everyone went quiet. We came down in to the clouds and in to the storm. People in front of me held tight to their seats. Reuben, just across the aisle, called across to me, "Ooh Mummy! We went up! We went down! Oh! Mummy we're all over the shop!" I looked over my shoulder and saw pale faces and eyes closed. Esther, sitting next to me with a lollipop in her mouth grinned from ear to ear and said "Wheee, wheee, wheee" for the entire time it took us to land. Absolutely glorious.